Bekime “Becky” Elani, 22Courtesy National Missing and Unidentified Person System

Colorado Springs police officers drove up to an apartment at 6228 Twin Oaks Dr. on the night of Monday, March 31, 2008. They were looking for 22-year-old Bekime “Becky” Elshani.

Becky’s father and friends had called 911 and said they hadn’t seen or heard from her since Saturday morning, 2 1/2 days earlier. Her parents told police she was wearing a pink and white shirt, a black jacket and blue jeans.

Suddenly, as the police officers walked towards the apartment door, they heard a single gunshot.

The apartment was where Becky lived with her 25-year-old boyfriend, Daniel Dereere.

The story of Becky’s and Daniel’s volatile relationship has since been widely reported by newspaper and TV reporters. In writing the following account of the ongoing unsolved case, I relied upon their many reports as well as what I recall of the case after writing a few stories for The Denver Post at the time myself.

Elshani and Dereere met either in 2002 or 2003 while working at a telephone call center in Colorado Springs. They dated off and on through the years. Becky became involved with another man, briefly marrying him, during a period when Dereere moved to Detroit, The Gazette reported.

Daniel returned to Colorado Springs, and he and Becky moved in together in early 2007.

Daniel Dereere wrote poetry with a possessive tone. He posted his love missives and poetry for the world to see on his MySpace page:

“I have no doubt that we are meant to be together forever, you are everything to me and without you I would be lost in this crazy world.”

A stanza of a poem he wrote, went: “He needs someone who’s faithful, only his lips may she kiss.”

When police entered the apartment of the 25-year-old man they weren’t sure what they would find but there were ample past indications of a troubled relationship between the beautiful divorcee and the young man.

Accusations had become a matter of public record after the two lovers reported violent and vengeful confrontations between each other to the police.

In May of 2007, Colorado Springs police arrested Becky for assault and harassment after she allegedly punched Dereere in the face during a fight.

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Anyone with information about Yong’s murder or who knows where her car is located is asked to call the Colorado Springs Police Department at 719-444-7000. Denver Post staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206. Follow him on Twitter for updates @KmitchellDP

Victor D. McClendon’s silver wire-rim glasses, suit and bushy eyebrows made the young Safeway grocery manager appear much older than his age of 32.

The La Junta native had been working at the store for five years including posts as produce manager, grocery clerk and assistant manager up until only a month earlier when he was promoted to manager. He was married to Jo Ann and the couple had two boys, ages 2 and 5.

But no amount of experience would have prepared him for what happened on the morning of Jan. 11, 1975.

An attack in Colorado Springs on Valentine’s Day 1985 “emotionally crippled” the Ivywild neighborhood.

From left, Detriecht Sturm, his mother Cassandra Rundle, and her daughter Melanie Sturm (Courtesy Families of Victims of Homicide and Missing Persons)

On that day between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., Cassandra Susan Rundle, 37, her 12-year-old son Detriecht Sturm and her 10-year-old daughter Melanie Sturm were strangled to death with articles of clothing and beaten in the head with a hockey stick, according to Denver Post articles at the time.

Rundle and her daughter were tied hand and foot with electric cords cut from table lamps and extension cords and raped.

Rundle was found nude, face down on her bed. She had been beaten eight to 10 times with a blunt instrument. Melanie’s body was found face down on her bedroom floor. Partially clothed in night clothes, she had a fractured skull. There was overturned furniture in her bedroom, indicating she fought her attacker.

Detriecht Sturm’s unbound body was found face down on his bedroom floor wearing street clothes, indicating he may have been outside and walked in on the killer. A blood-stained hockey stick was found in the boy’s bedroom, indicating he was likely the last one killed.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.